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The Composite Bat

04-28-2014 / By: X Bats

For more than
forty years since the advent of the aluminum bat, rules committees have been
dealing with the daunting task of balancing advances in bat composition and
manufacturing techniques against the integrity of the game as well as potential
safety hazards. Now, to further complicate the problem, there is one more type
of bat: the composite.Starting in 2011, BESR was out, BBCOR is in and ABI
testing is an interesting question mark for future years. There are legal
composites, illegal composites, composites that look like wood bats, composites
that look like aluminum bats, half and half bats and God knows what else will
appear in the coming years. Another chapter is currently being written in the
evolution of the baseball bat.

Composite
baseball bats are made of glass, carbon and Kevlar fibers placed together in a
plastic mold. These are anisotropic, which means that these bats are designed
to bring out a strength and stiffness of a different kind. The effect is that
composite baseball bats are lighter than an aluminum bats. Baseball composite
bats incorporated a recent technological advancement of their aluminum
counterpart to be used by college and high school players. These are
manufactured with an exterior similar to an aluminum baseball bat, but its
inside wall is woven instead. Using these have many advantages such as higher
damping, better swing effect, lower bending stiffness and an improved
trampoline effect.** See BBCOR

The NFHS is
currently reviewing composite bats on an on-going basis. They do not maintain
their rated characteristics for the life of the bat and that their performance
increases the more they are used. This has in fact been established. As the
bats are consistently used, they develop interior cracks resulting in increased
performance. Additional Accelerated Break In (ABI) testing is being performed
on bats submitted by the manufacturers. With a few exceptions, they were banned
in 2011 for high school baseball.

Bat tampering to
increase performance is an additional problem that has yet to be addressed.
Both "rolling" and "shaving" of a bat are illegal but
virtually impossible to detect. Rolling increases interior cracks (accelerated
break-in) increasing the ball's exit speed. Shaving entails removing the cap
and shaving down the interior of the bat. The bat becomes lighter and more
productive. Tamper-resistant bats are in the works on the manufacturing side,
but no such bat is yet available.

One thing
appears to be certain from 2011 college ball, BBCOR bats have had a dramatic
effect on the game. This has spread to high school ball in 2012 and beyond.The
change takes baseball back closer to what it once was before the dawn of the
metal bat..